The United States does not have a policy of regime change in Russia, American officials said, a day after President Joe Biden said that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”.

“As you know, and as you’ve heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Sunday during a visit to Israel. “In this case, as in any case, it’s up to the people of the country in question. It’s up to the Russian people,” Blinken added.

Blinken’s comments came after Biden gave his most forceful speech against Putin since the Russian leader ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. 

In an address delivered at Warsaw’s Royal Castle on Saturday evening, Biden evoked Poland’s four decades behind the Iron Curtain in an effort to build a case that the world’s democracies must urgently confront an autocratic Russia as a threat to global security and freedom.